Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a leading cause of community-acquired pneumonia across all ages and patient populations, in all climates and seasons, and epidemics are seen about every 3-7 years. It is difficult to distinguish M. pneumoniae infection from other respiratory pathogens based upon clinical presentation. This promotes use of potentially inappropriate antibiotics, which can lead to development of microbial resistance. In addition, delayed recognition of outbreaks results in continued spread in households and the larger community.
Current methods for diagnosing M. pneumoniae infection include culture, serology, or PCR. However, these methods require time (hours to days), multiple samples, and/or specialized equipment and expensive reagents. In addition, these types of methods are not suitable for use at point-of-care. Thus, there remains a need for development of specific, sensitive, rapid, and inexpensive methods for diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infection, particularly at the point-of-care.